All entities (e.g. financial institutions, businesses, universities, etc.) have various control elements, such as laws, requirements, procedures, policies etc. that the entity must follow in order to operate. Many of these control elements are related to each other, so that a change to one element necessitates a change to the other elements.
As an entity grows in size and complexity the number of control elements to which the entity must adhere increases as well. Eventually it becomes difficult to track the relatedness of the entity's control elements, and consequently, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand how one change to an element will affect other elements and to ensure that when an element is changed that the necessary change is adopted or incorporated into all related elements.
Therefore, a need exists for a system that can map the relationships between an entity's control elements and ensure that changes made to any one element are correctly adopted and incorporated into all related elements.